cosmos kramer:
ICAO is the foundation of civil aviation. Each country may have local deviations. You have to know the International regulation and the local regulations applicable to any counties you fly. In other words ICAO Doc 8168 is the master document, and TERPS is a local exemption.
Would it be so nice that all ICAO countries that use PANS-OPS were faithfully consistent in its application.
TERPS is used in all three North American countries so the 90%, or so, GA pilots who fly only within or between those three countries are nicely covered without even having knowledge of Doc 8168, of which TERPS is most decidedly not a subset.
Alas, the United Nations does not do much better in aviation matters than in the other matters it mucks around with.
For those 10%, or so, of North American pilots who fly airplanes capable of venturing across the ponds, we have some good international procedures schools for business aviators. And, most of the airlines who fly international do a good job of teaching the pertinent variations from the United Nation "standards" by placing emphasis on whether it is to be Western Europe, or Africa, or the Middle East, or South America, or Asia, or India, et al.
But, the bottom line: any pilot who thinks he can read basic PANS-OPS and be covered is ignoring the reality of actually being qualified to fly into not only a specific country, but being qualified to a specific airport or airports within those countries. That's the "end game" for survival.
Neither PANS-OPS nor TERPS are regulatory, rather they are instrument procedures design and construction criteria. Procedural operations regulations are regulatory by definition, but they have no application outside the state in which they apply. Some operating regulations and procedures are universal; many are not.